Man takes chilling last Instagram picture of ex-girlfriend before pushing her off cliff

On a hike with his ex-girlfriend, Jolee Callan, Loren Bunner took several snaps of her and posted them to Instagram. Then he shot her twice in the head and pushed her over a cliff.

Alabama residents Bunner, now 22, and Callan decided to remain friends after they broke up, and Bunner had suggested they go hiking together on the Pinhoti trail on 30 August, 2015. Chillingly, Callan, 18, had messaged a friend the night before the walk, joking, "If something happens to me, you'll know who I was with."

Bunner called police later that day, saying, "I want to turn myself in for the murder of my ex-girlfriend that happened just a little while ago on Cheaha Mountain."

Police found the teenager's body at the bottom of a 12-metre cliff that evening. There was "a large amount of blood" at the clifftop location, said lead investigator Shanon House in a November 2015 hearing, and blood on Bunner's steering wheel.

Photo: Facebook

Bunner initially claimed it was a suicide pact, but that he had been unable to kill himself after shooting Callan. However, in July this year he changed his plea to guilty. The court heard he had bragged to his cellmates that he had killed Callan, saying if he couldn't have her, nobody could.

Callan's father, Michael, said that Bunner wasn't "moving on with his life" after the break-up. Michael told a local news site that he had had a stroke, which he attributed to the strain he was experiencing after his daughter's death, and legal wrangling over whether Bunner would be granted youthful offender status. In the end, Bunner was tried as an adult.

Photo: Clay County

He was sentenced to 52 years in prison and a court-ordered restitution payment of more than $11,350 to the Alabama Crime Victims Commission.